the bullet sent to the crime lab?”
“It was.”
“Did the ballistics expert at the crime lab draw a conclusion concerning the gun that fired the bullet?”
“Yes, sir. He concluded that the gun that was found in the trunk of Mr. Blair’s Bentley fired the bullet that killed Mrs. Blair.”
“One more thing, Detective Santoro. Did you find some keys in Mrs. Blair’s grave?”
“We did.”
“Where did you find the keys?”
“Mrs. Blair’s purse was found in the grave, and there was a key ring in the purse. Then there was a single key that was unearthed when we began digging.”
“The key was just lying there?” Hamada asked.
“Yes, sir. It looked like it may have fallen in the grave by accident.”
“Objection! That’s pure speculation,” Benedict said.
“Sustained.”
“Was the crime lab able to connect the single key to the defendant?”
“A forensic expert found a fingerprint on the key and matched it to the defendant.”
“Did you conduct an experiment with the keys?”
“My partner, Detective Stephanie Robb, did. I was also present at the defendant’s estate, and so was Wilda Parks, the forensic expert who raised the print. We had in our possession the single key, the keys from Mrs. Blair’s purse, and the keys that were in the defendant’s possession when he was arrested.”
“What did Detective Robb do when you arrived at the estate?” the prosecutor asked.
“She tried the single key in the front door of the defendant’s mansion, and it opened the door,” Santoro replied.
“So the key turned out to be the defendant’s front door key?” Hamada asked.
“Objection,” Benedict said. “There is no evidence that the key belonged to Mr. Blair. That’s speculation. It could have been Mrs. Blair’s key and Mr. Blair may have touched it at some point. You can’t date fingerprints.”
“I’ll sustain the objection,” Judge Gardner ruled.
“I’ll rephrase the question, Detective. Did the key that you found in the grave that bore the defendant’s fingerprint open the front door to the defendant’s mansion?”
“Yes, it did.”
“Did any key on the key ring you found in the victim’s purse open the front door?”
“Yes, one of the keys on the key ring found in the purse did open the front door.”
“What about the defendant’s keys? Did any of them open the front door?”
“No. We tried them all and none of them worked.”
Horace Blair leaned into Benedict. “That’s impossible,” he whispered furiously.
“We’ll talk about this at the break,” Benedict said. “Let me listen to the testimony. I don’t want to miss anything.”
“What conclusion did you draw from this experiment?” Hamada asked.
“We thought it was unlikely that Mrs. Blair had two keys to her front door, though that is certainly possible. We thought that it was more likely that the key on her chain, which bore her fingerprints, was Mrs. Blair’s house key and the single key belonged to someone else, who had accidently dropped it in the grave while he was digging.
“The most likely owner of the single key was the person whose prints were found on it, the defendant. That conclusion was strengthened by the discovery that none of the defendant’s keys opened the front door of his house.”
“Thank you, Detective. I have no further questions.”
Charles Benedict was certain that Hamada did not plan to put Barry Lester on the stand. Hamada would have no idea how Lester would stand up under cross, and he wouldn’t want Benedict to get his hands on a transcript of sworn testimony that could be used to contradict Lester at trial. Benedict was also certain that Hamada was laying a trap for him, and he looked forward to falling into it.
“Detective Santoro,” Benedict said, “what prompted you to go to Mr. Blair’s place of business and ask him if he would let you look in the trunk of his Bentley?”
“We received a tip from someone who claimed to have seen the defendant put Mrs. Blair’s body in the trunk of his car.”
“What is the name of the good citizen who came forward with this information?”
“It was an anonymous tip.”
“I see. Now there was no way that you could have gotten a judge to issue a search warrant for the trunk based solely on an anonymous tip, was there?”
“No, sir.”
“Then how did you get to see the inside of the trunk?”
“Mr. Blair opened it for us.”
“He could have refused, couldn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“And there was nothing you could have done about that if he had said that he was not going to let you search the trunk, was there?”
“No.”
“Mr. Blair is the head of a multinational business empire, is he not?”
“Yes.”
“He has degrees from